ARM YOURSELF WITH ANTIOXIDANTS

Inside your body, an army of antioxidants is protecting you from the forces of aging and disease. We're huge fans of these stellar nutrients and how you can get more on your side.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
The same evolutionary process that transformed us from hairy hunchbacks with underbites to smooth-skinned consumers of whitening toothpaste also gave us the ability to fight free radicals on our own. Our bodies make a variety of antioxidants but no matter how much overtime they put in, internally produced antioxidants can't battle all the free radicals flying around -- especially in today's world of mercury-filled fish and Hummer fumes. So we turn to our food supply. "Our bodies evolved to take advantage of protective substances found in the foods available to us," Blumberg says.

Selenium: This overachiever isn't annoying like the teacher's pet back in high school. The trace mineral does double duty -- it acts as an antioxidant itself and speeds up your body's natural antioxidant-making process. In a study at Cornell University and the University of Arizona of 1,312 patients with skin cancer, those who got 200 micrograms of selenium daily for 10 years reduced their risk of dying from any cancer -- not just skin cancer -- by 18 percent, compared with those who took a placebo.
Shoot for the DV of 55 microgramsBest food sources: Brazil nuts (95.8 mcg per nut), snapper (41.6 mcg per 3 ounces), and shrimp (33.7 mcg per 3 ounces)

Vitamin E: The health-conscious side of us appreciates that this antioxidant fights heart disease, boosts immunity, and helps stop cell damage that leads to skin cancer. But let's face it: We love that this vitamin also keeps the ravages of time from showing up on our face. In a Korean study, mice exposed to ultraviolet sunlight were less likely to wrinkle when they consumed vitamin E (along with a host of other antioxidants).
Shoot for the DV of 15 milligramsBest food sources: Sunflower seeds (10.3 mg per ounce), hazelnuts (4.3 mg per ounce), and peanut butter (2.9 mg per 2 tablespoons)